She's ba-ack... and even better than before! Actually, better than ever... I'm not walking as of yet, but my energy has been HUGE. The holidays were wacked with all the snow; lovely yes, but also a royal pain in the butt, seeing as I wasn't able to get to either ADAPT or OHSU for three weeks. The incredibly cool thing, however, was my session with Marvin last week when I finally WAS able to get back to OHSU. I got there early, so was surprised that he was able to see me when I first arrived. After I got hooked up in this coset-like thing (I'm not kidding; I swear I have flashbacks to previous lifetimes) he had me begin. And it WAS harder than I remembered. When I said, 'Marv, this thing is set slower than I remember'; his response was, Yeah, I'm making it that way so I can see where your body is at after all this time. The crazy thing was, seeing as I hadn't been there for three weeks it should've been a lot harder, but it wasn't tough at all. He told me he was impressed. When the person who was scheduled after me called to say she was going to be late, he then asked me if I wanted to keep going. I wasn't tired at all and felt great, so I did. When it was finally time to end my session; now he was VERY impressed. He told me that for 50 minutes I had walked longer than I ever had before; a mile and at a slower pace (which is more challenging) and supposedly the whole time I was doing 20% of the work. The thing he was really amazed about was the fact that I had the endurance to do so. Even though a locomat is an automatic locomoton device, the corset-thing is hooked up to a computer that monitors your movement, and can be set to stop if the person using it isn't exerting any energy. A computer screen is in front of you so you can watch your progress, then move as the therapist instructs. In the past Locomat has been enormously tiring--more so than ADAPT--but it's getting easier and easier as time goes on. My healing progress is getting VERY intriguing... Stay tuned!</p>